


The World Ender

by NoirSongbird



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Force-Sensitive Hux, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Temporary Character Death, not even death can keep hux down, well eventual comfort anyhow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-05-26 14:11:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6242488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoirSongbird/pseuds/NoirSongbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fall of Starkiller Base, Snoke executes General Hux for his failures.</p><p>Unfortunately for Snoke, the Force  - or at least, certain Force ghosts - have other plans for the General. Brought back to life with newly-awakened Force abilities and a thirst for revenge, Hux is here to find Kylo Ren and get him away from his former Master. And he'll burn the galaxy to the ground to do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. They Put Me in the Ground

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was heavily inspired by the song "The World Ender" by Lord Huron. Also: yes, I am judging myself for starting another story, I promise.

Ren had tried to reassure him. It was sweet, really, how desperately he had tried - _surely Snoke would not execute his best General, you will rise from this greater than you ever were_ and the most final, the most desperate, _I will not let him harm you._

But Hux had known. Had known for a long time that he was doomed - that one way or another, he had sealed his own fate the moment he gave into the temptation of Ren’s soft lips and dark eyes and surprisingly gentle smile. He had become an _attachment,_ and _attachment_ was practically synonymous with _liability._

Still, he stood before the Supreme Leader in that dark Citadel throne room, with Ren at his side, and looked Snoke in the face when the man handed down his sentence.

“See, my apprentice,” Snoke said, “the price of failure, and the frivolity of attachment.”

He had heard of Force lightning, but until Snoke turned it on him, he had never seen it in action.

The last thing Hux remembered, besides agonizing, burning pain in every nerve, was Kylo’s wail of pain, like he himself was being electrocuted right along with Hux.

Hux focused, in that moment, on the flame he had been tending in his chest, quiet and unspoken, because they had never called what they had _love_ but Hux knew what he felt.

He hoped, briefly, that Kylo did too.

And then he thought of nothing more.

 

\----------------

 

_“Oh, no.” A clipped, Core-accented voice, unfamiliar but firm. “It isn’t your time yet, General. Ben still needs you. Very badly.”_

_Hux wanted to argue. He was dead, he was definitely dead, there was nothing more he could do for the man who had once been Ben Solo, no matter how much he wanted to and how little he wanted to leave his lover to Snoke's whims. But he couldn’t find the energy._

_“You can save him,” another voice, more Outer Rim than Core, and that was interesting. “We couldn’t, but you can.”_

_No, Hux wanted to say, no he couldn’t, he didn’t_ save _people, and he especially didn’t save_ Kylo Ren.

_He did not get to argue._

 

\----------------

 

When Hux woke up, he was surprised to find that he was not in screaming, agonizing pain. He should have been, really. He was wrapped in some kind of shroud and the press of dirt told him he was in the ground. Ren had probably buried him, he supposed; Snoke wouldn’t take the time. In fact, he was a little surprised that Ren had been _allowed_ to. It had none of the pomp of a proper burial; no coffin, just wrappings, so he supposed it was possible Ren had done it quietly, one night, without Snoke’s knowledge or permission.

Sweet. Sentimental. Utterly Ren, really.

So. He was buried. Which meant it wasn’t a dream, and he really had died. Snoke had executed him for his failures - for the fall of Starkiller and, he suspected, for daring to have a relationship with Ren.

Now here he was, breathing again, because two fucking ghosts - and he had inkling suspicions about who those ghosts might be - had kicked him back into his own deceased body. Because apparently Ben - Ren - still _needed_ him. Whatever the hell that meant.

Put back into the land of the living because his absolute human disaster of a lover needed to be saved from himself. Or from Snoke.

 _Fucking typical,_ really. Hux’s life had never really been about himself; it was about his father’s legacy or the Order. And now? Now it was about _Ren._ Ren, who had already been rendered so fragile by the death of his father, who Hux had long suspected Snoke just wanted to _break,_ who had so much potential and whose potential was wasted by a monster who refused to acknowledge it, or who wanted to turn it to his own means.

Hux felt a slow, but growing onslaught of rage. _Snoke_ had demanded he fire Starkiller again, had demanded he target the Ileenium system and corner the Resistance, had practically _provoked_ that attack, had insisted Kylo murder his father instead of doing anything useful. _Snoke was the reason Starkiller fell._ And he had murdered _Hux_ for it, and had undoubtedly since been putting Ren through all kinds of intolerable hell in the name of completing his training.

So yes, Ren needed him, because he knew Ren well enough to know he would accept whatever abuse Snoke put him through, and that could not be allowed to happen as long as Hux drew breath.

He fell into his rage, and it gave him clarity.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath and held it, and he realized, when he let everything else drift away, that he could _feel_ the depth he was at (shallow, which, _typical Ren)._

So he wriggled out of the cloth wrapped around him, and started digging. He could feel power at his fingertips, a strength he hadn’t expected, and it made the digging easier, the shifting of earth off him and over the side of the shallow grave he had been left in.

General Hux crawled out of his grave, and snarled at the sky.

Snoke was going to _pay._


	2. But I'm Back from the Dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am the absolute worst at responding to comments individually, mostly because I feel like they'd blur into lots of gleeful yelling, but please know that the response to this fic has been so overwhelmingly wonderful, there has been a lot of squealing and delightedly showing your lovely comments to friends who don't even go here and are probably very tired of me, and I am SO PLEASED. I LOVE YOU VERY MUCH, FANDOM.

Hux pushed himself out of the shallow grave, shaking off the dust and dirt, flexing his fingers and testing his joints. He  _ felt  _ remarkably good, for having just dragged himself out of his own grave. He glanced down - still in uniform, also remarkably undamaged from Snoke’s Force lightning attack. Generally, he looked surprisingly presentable for a man who had been dead.

Small mercies.

He felt horrifically grimy, and somewhere on his priority list after “find Kylo” and “murder Snoke” was definitely “take a fucking shower,” but that could wait for a little while. There might even be a benefit in storming into Snoke’s throne room looking like he had just crawled out of the ground like some kind of furious angel of vengeance.

A slow smile worked its way across his face. Yes, he liked that idea very,  _ very  _ much.

He checked his hip, and found the comforting weight of his blaster. And something else, beside it.

He carefully unhooked the item from his belt loop, and turned it over in his hands. It was more familiar than he would have liked, between seeing it in Ren’s quarters and a few very up-close encounters when he decided to throw caution to the wind and physically intervene during his lover’s rages.

Ren’s lightsaber hilt.

“Sentimental  _ idiot, _ ” Hux growled. There was no value in that. Ren obviously had no idea he was going to be coming back to life, or he wouldn’t have buried him at all - Hux hoped. So he had just clipped his sacred fucking weapon to his dead lover’s hip and  _ buried it with him,  _ probably as some dramatically sentimental gesture of burying part of himself with Hux or something. It would have been sweet, if it didn’t make the General want to hit Ren over the head with the damn thing.

“He gets it from his grandfather,” and there it was, that Core-accented voice he recognized from that vague space that must have been in between life and death. Or was the afterlife. Or something.

“Does he now,” Hux said, and he turned, to look the ghost of General Obi-Wan Kenobi in the face. He was younger than Hux had expected, not much older than Hux’s thirty-four, even though he knew Kenobi had been much older than that when Vader struck him down. He had seen old holos of the General from his time fighting in the Clone Wars, and that was what he looked like, which gave certainty to Hux’s first guess at the man’s identity.

“He really, really does,” Kenobi said, and he gave a long, slow look to the man standing beside him. That man looked no older than twenty or so, and he was regarding Hux very seriously, a tight frown on his face. There was only one person he could be, and really, wasn’t that just fucking  _ perfect. _

“General Kenobi. General Skywalker. Or would you prefer Lord Vader?” Hux asked, and it came out with a tinge of sarcasm. The wince from the younger man at his Sith title told him all he needed to know. “Skywalker it is, then.”

“You’re handling this remarkably calmly,” Kenobi observed.

“I assure you,” Hux said, “my apparent calm is because I am so _transcendently_ _furious_ I’ve skipped right past angry and back to calm again. Which I have plenty of practice with, thanks to Ren.” Skywalker laughed, and Hux wanted to punch him a little, though he wasn’t sure it was possible to do violence to a Force ghost. Which brought him to another equally salient point. “I thought only Force sensitives could interact with Force ghosts.” He was already moving, striding towards the Citadel, visions of exactly what he would do once he was inside swirling through his head. He’d pull off his glove before he got in, and put a blaster bolt between Snoke’s eyes before that monster had a chance to fight back. He had always been an excellent shot, and he sort of longed for the familiar weight of his sniper rifle, though using it in the close quarters of Snoke’s citadel would be _aggressively_ overdoing it.

He felt he was owed a little overdoing it by the universe, though, really. 

And then he would scoop Kylo up and they would fly back to the First Order and take it the fuck over and get things running  _ properly,  _ without Snoke around to fuck it up.

Yes, that sounded lovely.

He was jolted out of his musings by Skywalker’s voice, and the ghost was almost jogging to keep pace with him, which would have been hilarious in any other circumstance.

“You  _ are  _ Force-sensitive. I mean, you are  _ now,  _ you weren’t  _ before,”  _  Skywalker said, and Hux wanted to groan.

“Is that so.” He said. Great. Wonderful. More bullshit.

“You always had the potential,” Skywalker said, “but it was...repressed, somehow. Snoke, maybe? Obi-Wan says that’s not possible but Obi-Wan  _ also  _ thought bringing you back at  _ all  _ would be impossible, so really, who should we be listening to here.”

“Not you,” Hux said, somewhat bitterly, “given that according to everything Ren’s ever told me, it was  _ your  _ absolutely terrible grandpaternal advice that sent him scurrying off to Snoke in the  _ first place _ .” Was Hux glad that Skywalker had somehow finally extracted his head from his glowing ass long enough to realize exactly how much danger that had put his grandson in? Certainly, but he was still sort of distantly furious with the man that it had happened at all. If Ren had never turned to the Dark Side, they might never have met, but he was fairly certain Ben Solo would be much happier and more well-adjusted. Maybe living with some handsome Resistance pilot. Maybe Poe Dameron. Probably Poe Dameron.

Skywalker had stopped walking, and when Hux paused and turned, he was staring with the oddest look on his face.

“...Whatever Ben saw, it wasn’t me,” the ghost said, and Hux narrowed his eyes. “I’ve never been able to reach Ben. I tried, you have no idea how hard I tried, half the time he talked about hearing the call from the Light I was on the other end wanting him to  _ fucking pick up,  _ but I could never get through. Snoke was always in the way.”

Hux felt like something very cold had been dropped down the back of his shirt.

“Well, fuck.” He said, and he filed away the new, horrifying realization of how long and how far Snoke’s manipulation of his lover extended for later. “I was going to kill Snoke quickly, but now I think I’m going to make it as slow and violent as possible.” And then he whirled again, stalking at a faster pace towards the Citadel. Because, priorities. 

“Snoke isn’t there,” Kenobi called, and Hux stopped  _ again,  _ and this time he had to bite back about a dozen different curses, five of which were in languages he had picked up entirely from Ren’s bizarrely broad vocabulary. 

“ _ What do you mean, Snoke isn’t there,” _ he gritted out angrily.

“There was a massive fluctuation in the Force, when we started bringing you back. He...felt it, and took himself and Ben off planet.” Kenobi explained, looking slightly sheepish.

Hux wanted to scream.

“Of course. Because Maker forbid this be easy.” He rubbed his temples, and began to consider. Fine, he would have to reevaluate his plans, which now included  _ “find  _ Snoke and Kylo” as first priority. “How long was I dead for?”

“About a standard week,” Skywalker said, “give or take?” 

“So the Order’s plans won’t have changed much,” he said, and he was planning aloud. “That’s good. I’ll need a ship off this makerforsaken rock, and I’ll want to get to somewhere near, but not in, First Order space. The Outer Rim. Pick up what news I can, and then.” Slowly, a wicked smile began to work its way across his face. “I can’t go back to the First Order, not yet - they’ll have denounced me as a traitor, likely, and already replaced me. So instead, I’ll just have to get  _ them  _ to come to  _ me.”  _ It would mean a lot of destruction and disruption of the First Order’s capabilities. He was loathe to do it, a little, because he had built so much of the Order’s successes with his own hands, but they had also cast him off, and frankly, right now, they were too far under Snoke’s thumb to be relied upon. 

Besides, once Snoke was dead and Kylo was back, he would be able to take back his rightful place as the Order’s sole leader and fix it.

He was surprised, when Skywalker’s open palm contacted his shoulder, that he could actually feel the companionable smack.

“I knew you were the man for the job, General.” He said, and Hux heard Kenobi sigh very, very heavily. (Part of Hux rather sympathized. He could not count the number of times he had released that exact put-upon sigh in relation to some shenanigan or other of Ren’s.)

“Are there any ships left here?” Hux asked. This was going to be a very short plan if there weren’t. 

“Uh,” Skywalker said, “haven’t...really checked. You’re gonna have to look for yourself, but I mean, you remember where the hangar was, right?” 

Hux groaned, but yes, he did. There had been multiple ships docked there, too - personal craft of the Knights of Ren, perhaps? Hux didn’t want to speculate, but if there was anything left behind, he was going to find it. 

And then he was going to cause some damn galactic chaos.


	3. I Had a Name, but They Took it from Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to content-warn for some brief passive suicidal ideation in this chapter (and it really is brief, but I would rather mention it than not); poor Kylo is not in the best state.

Kylo had not expected to return to the _Finalizer_ so quickly after being recalled to Snoke. So soon after...well, were he being honest, he had thought he would have more time to adjust to the _void_ left in his chest with Hux gone before he was dropped back on the ship they had commanded together. He suspected Snoke had meant to keep him for longer, as well, but the massive, powerful fluctuation in the Force had changed his Master’s plans.

Kylo supposed it might have been Rey finding his old master. He supposed, distantly, that their parent-child reunion was likely to be better than his had been. If Rey even remembered who she was. But surely Luke would recognize his lost daughter.

Well, that was sort of lovely.

He knew Rey wanted to kill him. She’d been practically boiling over with righteous fury, on Starkiller, furious at him for harming her - friend? Crush? Whatever it was she felt for that fucking traitor Stormtrooper. And furious at him for killing his father, who had acted like the closest thing to a father _she_ had known. Part of him wished she _had_ killed him, but that was stupid.

Hux wouldn’t want him to give up.

Even if Kylo sort of wanted to.

He stepped off the shuttle, and was dully surprised to see only Lieutenant Mitaka standing there. (Dully because all of his feelings were dulled, lately, like the white-hot pain of Hux’s death had left him less able to feel everything else after.)

“L-Lord Ren,” Mitaka stammered, and Kylo was confused about that for a moment until he realized that Mitaka was still terrified of him. Oh. Well. That was going to be a thing, he supposed. Most of the crew was afraid of him, probably, maybe more afraid now that Hux was gone since so many of them perceived their General as his leash.

Or more afraid because they had seen what Snoke did to that General for his failure. The Supreme Leader had broadcast Hux’s execution to the whole of the First Order, though he had fortunately (for Kylo’s dignity) ended the broadcast before it showed Kylo’s reaction - screaming the General’s name and gathering the corpse in his arms, like he could somehow, with the force of nothing but his overwhelming grief, undo the snuffing-out of the General’s Force presence - his _life._

He couldn’t. Nothing could.

“Sir?” Mitaka queried, dragging Kylo forcibly back to the present. “Your, um. Your quarters are still - no one’s been in them, sir.”

“I should hope not.” Kylo regarded him with a raised eyebrow, and it was actually interesting to watch Mitaka react to his _face,_ to an expression of personality, because Snoke had not allowed him to craft a new helmet. He was no longer to be the faceless extension of Snoke’s will - he was to be something more. His face, his relation to Leia Organa, were to be new weapons, and he supposed he could embrace the concept. He started walking, and Mitaka looked a little startled, and speedwalked to keep up with him. “What of the General’s rooms?” The realization came to him suddenly that he absolutely did not want anyone else moving into that suite. No one else should lay where Hux had, should move in and disturb Hux’s things, should - should touch all the places that belonged to _him and Hux,_ and no one fucking else, damn it. Certianly not whatever sniveling wretch the First Order appointed to replace Hux.

“I - um, I’ve been in. To. Feed Millicent. Sir.” Kylo wanted to be angry, for a moment, but - right. Millicent. Hux’s cat. Someone had to feed her, with her owner lying on Snoke’s old planet in a shallow grave. (Less, by far, than Hux deserved. He _deserved_ a funeral with full military honors, but Snoke would not have allowed it, and Kylo would not allow him to rot in some corner of Snoke’s citadel.)

“Ah.” Kylo said, briefly. “Thank you. I’ll...take care of the cat,” he said, and dimply he registered that this was probably the longest conversation he’d had with a member of the crew who was not Hux or Phasma in a very, very long time. Possibly ever. Mostly he ignored the officer’s corps. “No one is to enter the General’s quarters. Especially not his...replacement.” Kylo knew the word came out sounding like something vile. Good. He _considered_ it something vile. “I am sure there are plenty of other available officer’s suites.” Mitaka nodded, and for a moment Ren felt a flash of fierce determination in the young Lieutenant.

 _Oh._ He had been loyal to Hux, too, held a similar disdain for the idea of replacing him, was - Kylo pressed just a little past the surface, not enough to be noticed, probably - was _angry_ about the way Hux died. Kylo missed anger. He hadn’t been able to summon his fury since that awful day, either.

“Anything else, sir?” Mitaka asked, and there was no stammer this time, because the fear was mostly gone. Interesting.

“Inform Navigation that we'll be making a stop on Ilum,” Kylo said, "I require a new kyber crystal." Because in a fit of sentiment, he had left his old one with Hux's corpse. It had seemed important, and it still did, to leave something of himself behind, with Hux, who had meant so much - whose loss ached so keenly - and there was nothing more a part of him than his 'saber.

But he required a new one to replace it, and for that, he needed a kyber crystal. He could have synthesized a new crystal - would have, if he was training with Snoke instead of back in what was likely to be action - but there was not time for that. Instead, he would have to venture into the caves on Ilum. Like a Jedi.

The thought made him want to shudder.

"That's all, Lieutenant," he said when Mitaka nodded to acknowledge his orders, and he waved him off. Mitaka started to turn and walk away, but then he stopped.

“Sir, um,” he began, and Kylo paused, regarded him briefly. “I know it isn’t my place to ask, but, you and the General were...close, and - are you...alright?”

It took Kylo a very long moment to realize that Mitaka was expressing genuine concern for his emotional state. The list of people who did that was vanishingly short. Hux, Phasma - in her way, mostly out of concern for his efficiency in battle. That was it.

“You’re right, Lieutenant,” Kylo said, deciding that absolutely the last thing he wanted was to break down all over Mitaka, thank you _very_ much, “it isn’t your place.” He waved a hand, again, in dismissal, and Mitaka nodded and walked off briskly.

When he arrived at the door to Hux’s quarters, he stood outside for a very long time, steeling himself to step inside.

It was exactly as they’d left it.

He and Hux had spent their last night on the _Finalizer_ \- Hux’s last night alive - there, and Hux’s last morning, and ---

Kylo regretted the strangest things, now that Hux was gone. Though maybe not so strange. He regretted not kissing Hux more, regretted achingly every night he’d slipped out after sex, regretted every moment he could have whispered _I love you_ and didn’t. The one emotion he had ever managed to keep bottled up, and now he wished he hadn’t, wished he had said it a thousand times.

There was something weaving between his legs, and Kylo bent down, scooping Millicent up. She purred loudly and settled against his chest, and he cradled her delicately.

“Hey, Millie,” he said, voice soft. She meowed, pressing her face against his chest. “Hux...isn’t coming back, so I’m going to be taking care of you now.” The cat seemed mostly unbothered - but then, she was Hux’s cat, there wasn’t much she was bothered by, really.

He scrounged through the room for her bed, and her dishes, and some food, and made casual use of the Force to keep it all together without his hands.

And he paused, briefly, on his way out. Hux’s greatcoat was draped over the back of his desk chair, where he’d left it that night. He hadn’t worn it to meet Snoke, and Kylo was glad for that now, because he scooped it up and held it against his chest.

It still smelled like Hux, the spicy-sweet scent of _him,_ and the tang of his tabac, and maybe Kylo was imagining it but he swore there was a little bit of the General’s favorite brandy.

When he was back in his room, and Millicent was settled, he curled around the coat and sobbed.

Snoke had wanted to burn this out of him - the capacity to feel softer emotions, the need for human attachments. To make him a creature entirely of hate and fury.

Perhaps with more than a few days of direct tutelage, he might have succeeded. As it was --

Kylo Ren was weak. Kylo Ren had always been weak.

Kylo should want to be stronger, want to overcome all the things holding him back - and he knew that, he did, and he had absolutely learned the intended lesson about attachment when Hux lay cooling and dead in his arms.

All he wanted, in that horrible, empty moment, was to have Hux stroking his hair and telling him it was going to be alright, that they would rise from this, that they would always find a way - together.

But Hux wasn’t there. He never would be again. Which meant nothing was ever going to be alright.

Slowly, Kylo felt his familiar fury began to trickle back. How _dare_ the universe take Hux from him.

He knew, squarely, where blame for Hux’s death fell. With Snoke, and only with Snoke. But raging against his Master, rising up against him, was pointless. Someone else would have to take his seat, and the only man remotely qualified was dead. So as much as Kylo wanted to take revenge against the actual source of his grief, he could not.

(Perhaps that was why Snoke had chosen to execute Hux, instead of some other punishment. Perhaps he knew.)

So instead he let his rage coalesce into a clean, clear fury in an acceptably channelable direction. The _Resistance._ If they hadn’t shown up - if Dameron hadn’t blown Hux’s beloved weapon to pieces - if that _fucking traitor Stormtrooper_ hadn’t told them where to find the vulnerable but critically necessary oscillator, Hux would still be alive.

He was going to bleed them all dry for it.


	4. I Had a Place Where to Lay My Head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Misc note that all chapter titles are lyrics from the song that inspired the fic, in case anyone was curious where they were coming from!

The shuttle he and Ren had arrived in was still in the hangar. Snoke, it seemed, had a personal ship - not too surprising, really. And wherever he had taken Ren, they had gone in that.

The shuttle was fairly anonymous - the First Order was surprisingly restrained regarding plastering its insignia on things, which certainly made Hux’s life easier. He examined it carefully, checking inside and out for any sign of tampering.

“Do you really think Snoke rigged it to explode, or something?” Anakin asked, sounding somewhat amazed by the idea.

“I think that trusting he didn’t could very easily result in me ending up as a much less revivable corpse,” Hux replied dryly. He rolled up his sleeves and set his gloves aside, carefully examining the connections running through the ship. “While I’m working, tell me what benefits my brand-new Force connection gives me. Besides, obviously, listening to you two chatter at me.”

“You’ll be able to use most of the general Force abilities - telekinesis, persuasion, sharpened senses and reflexes. Anything more than that will require intense training. Which we really do not have time for.” Kenobi said. Hux nodded.

“Acceptable.” He said. “How likely is it that Snoke is aware of exactly what that Force fluctuation meant?”

“That’s...impossible to know. He _will_ be aware of the awakening of another Forceuser, though.” Kenobi replied.

“Given that he was aware of Ren since Ren was in fucking utero, apparently, that doesn’t surprise me.” Hux grumbled. “Can he tell where I am?”

“Not with any sort of accuracy. It doesn’t work like that.” Kenobi replied. “But he may reach out to you.”

“Oh, Maker, I hope he does.” Hux said, and then he started laughing softly. “That would be a hell of a conversation. _No, fuck you very much, you murdered me so I’ll pass on any of what you’re offering.”_ Anakin laughed a little, too, and even Obi-Wan cracked a smile. Hux checked a few more wires, and then stood up. “It’s about as safe as I can assure it,” he said, “which means that if I end up dead, it will probably be by my own idiocy, and I don’t plan to be an idiot.”

“I miss piloting,” Anakin said, as Hux settled into the cockpit. “It was fun.”

“I _don’t_ miss your piloting,” Obi-Wan said, slightly bitterly.

“If you fly anything like your grandson, Skywalker, I’m not letting you near the controls of anything. Ever.” Hux grumbled as he started the shuttle. “Ren flies like a fucking maniac.”

More precisely, Hux supposed, Ren flew like a fucking _smuggler,_ probably because a fucking smuggler taught him how to fly.

“That sounds like an apt enough description of Anakin’s flying,” Obi-Wan said.

“That’s _completely_ unfair, I was an _excellent_ pilot.” Anakin protested. Hux rolled his eyes, and got the ship out of atmo and into hyperspace while the ghosts bickered behind them.

“Oh, absolutely, but you were also _terrifying.”_ Obi-Wan shot back. “ _You landed half a ship,_ Anakin. You _shaved years off my life_ with that stunt.”

“As I recall,” Hux said, in a very pointed attempt to get them both to _shut up,_ “he shaved years off your life in a significantly more literal way.”

It worked, for which Hux was thoroughly thankful. If he had to listen to ghosts bicker for the rest of his second life, he was fairly certain he was going to go mad.

 

\------------------------

 

Snoke’s former home was far into the Unknown Regions - it took several days to reach Hux’s intended destination of Cardooine. It was a smuggling hub, ever since the fall of the Empire, and the First Order had never seen need to claim it. It was safe enough for liberty, but the Cardooine Chills were too much of a potential threat to the First Order’s entire population to risk a mass ground invasion. Medical care like vaccinations, so basic to the rest of the galaxy, were difficult to come by in exile in the Unknown Regions. It had only been later in life that Hux got many of the vaccines that Ren had (with some surprise) informed him were standard for _children_ in the Republic.

He was willing to risk the disease for a safe port that would be close to, but not in, First Order space, and one that was relatively popular with officers from across the fleet. An officer wouldn’t stand out, and he was glad for the lack of his greatcoat; it bore the most prominent display of his General’s bars.

His _hair,_ however…

Hux dug out a container of bootblack from the small bag he had tossed onto the shuttle with him, when he was first flying down with Ren. It had seemed silly to pack at all, since he hadn’t expected to stay long - had known, even then, that he was going to his death - but it made Ren feel better, and he did a lot of things for Ren’s benefit. More than he liked to admit.

“What are you _doing?”_ Anakin asked, rather judgmentally, as Hux peeled off his gloves and spread bootblack over his fingers.

“Coloring my hair,” Hux replied dryly. “I don’t know how much attention you pay to mortal events, Skywalker, but right before I blew up five planets with the finest weapon since the Death Star, I gave a propaganda speech. _This is the last day of the Republic_ and all that. Lots of posturing. It was broadcast as far and as wide as the First Order could manage. Which means I am _recognizable,_ and I am in no way in a position to be _recognized.”_ Skywalker looked distantly alarmed, and Hux raised an eyebrow at him. “You had to know who I was when you chose to bring me back. If you want someone whose morals totally align with your own, may I suggest your son? Or the scavenger girl, who I have no doubt is one of you fucking Skywalkers as well?”

“...No, it has to be you,” Anakin said, and he regarded Hux for a long moment. “You’re something else, General, I’ll say that much. You remind me of Palpatine.” He paused. “Favorably, actually.”

“I was going to take it as a compliment regardless,” Hux said, carefully taking a comb to his hair to distribute the coloring evenly. “Find somewhere else to be, I’m going to shower.”

Anakin rapidly found somewhere else to be.

 

\------------------------

Hux took his first steps onto Cardooine and inhaled slowly. It was a lush world, and the port he had landed at was a city on the edge of the jungle, and he felt inconspicuous enough in the teeming mess of people to simply slip through and find his way to a bar he knew to be relatively popular with officers on leave. His blaster was carefully holstered, and Ren’s lightsaber was tucked in an inner pocket of his coat - he didn’t expect to need it, but it was comforting to have it at hand anyway.

The bar was full enough, and Hux ordered a drink and sank into an empty booth, close enough to a gathering of officers to listen in.

“I’m surprised they’re giving us liberty,” one said, male by his voice, sounding dire, “after Starkiller.”

“They’re still scrambling to replace Hux - nothing’s gonna happen until they’ve got someone in charge.” Another, a woman, replied dryly. Hux wanted to groan into his hands. He’d left a clear line of succession, for exactly this bloody purpose - that the Order was “scrambling” likely meant many of the people in line were not eager to step up.

“After seeing what Supreme Leader did to Hux, would _you_ want the job?” The first officer asked, and Hux could hear the sneer in his voice. “Everyone in the fleet got treated to the show of the General getting bloody _electrocuted to death,_ and you wonder why nobody wants to take his job.” Ah, well, that explained why his carefully-instituted succession line was falling apart. Cowards. “Besides, heading the _Finalizer_ means working with Kylo Ren.”

There was a moment of silence, and Hux suspected the officers were making a generalized religious appeal, the way he’d seen a lot of people react to Ren’s name. He snorted, just a little. The intimidation factor had worn off, for him, the first time Ren had destroyed a console, and been completely undermined the first time he’d seen Ren’s infuriatingly beautiful face.

“I’ve heard,” a third officer at the table spoke up, dropping their voice to a conspiratorial whisper, and Hux had to focus, grasp what had to be the Force, to keep listening, “some people are planning to defect. They think we’re right fucked without Hux in charge, and I’m not sure they’re wrong. Nobody’s gonna be able to fill the shoes of General Starkiller.”

That was bizarrely warming.

So, too, was hearing the three officers _toast_ to “General Hux, the galaxy's most magnificent bastard.”

“Attending your own funeral is a little like this,” Skywalker said, from the seat across from him. “I would figure, at least. I, uh, didn’t get much of one.”

“Fascinating,” Hux said under his breath. He finished his drink and stood. “I need to acquire supplies. Help, or don’t.” Anakin nodded.

He had a little intelligence and the beginnings of a plan. The Order was obviously already in chaos - they couldn’t afford further losses. So he would have to get himself to a proper Order-controlled planet and start inflicting as many losses as he could. The way the three officers had spoken, it sounded likely Ren was back on the _Finalizer_ \- which meant he was at least out of Snoke’s direct hands. And it meant Hux would have a far easier time getting his attention.

He could make the Order - make _Ren_ \- come to him. And from the sound of it, he’d be welcomed back with open arms.

He pressed a hand to his mouth to cover his spreading smirk.

Snoke had no idea how badly he had miscalculated in executing Hux - and further, in _broadcasting his execution to his very loyal officers._

This was going to be even easier than he’d expected.


	5. I'm Coming for Them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand here we stop in with Leia because I love her.

Leia could not count the number of times she had watched the recording, hand-delivered to the Resistance by way of a returned prisoner a few weeks after it had been made - assuming the massive shift in the Force that even she, untrained as she was, had felt was related to the General’s death and Ren’s agonizing grief over it. She knew, deep in her bones, that it was from Snoke, a personal insult directed at her. No one else in the First Order knew her son’s identity - and sending the Resistance a recording of General Hux’s execution that lingered on Ben curled over the General’s corpse, wailing like the world was ending, had to be directed, a knife in her chest. There was no real practical reason to show the mighty Kylo Ren falling apart, not when just showing that Hux was dead was enough.

The first time it played, in a meeting with the highest-level members of the Resistance, it had left the whole room silent. Poe had put one hand on her shoulder and wrapped the other in Finn’s, who was staring at the recording in abject horror.

“But…” Finn said, weakly, “Hux was the best. He...nobody was more loyal, he practically _was_ the Order.” He swallowed. “We used to have to watch these propaganda speeches, and it was - it was always him.”

Poe was staring at Ben’s prone figure - frowning, faintly, like he was finally really realizing that the same Ben he had known as a child was the man under Kylo Ren’s helmet.

“Damn,” he said, finally, ripping his eyes away and looking over at Leia. She was leaning heavily on the projector, studying every detail of her son’s face in the holo. It was difficult, to see him for the first time in a decade and a half and to have it be like this, but she had to consider everything.

“General,” Ackbar began, “what should we do with this?” His voice was gentle. The room was full of the few people who knew Kylo Ren’s true identity - who knew, she supposed, what watching the full video was costing her.

She was silent for a long moment. It was certainly important to show their people that the man they had taken to calling _General Starkiller_ in hushed tones was dead, because it would be a boost to morale. On the other, she wasn’t quite sure her heart would be able to take listening to the rampant mockery that would undoubtedly spiral through the ranks at Ben’s obvious pain. She didn’t blame her people, she couldn’t, not when Ben had hurt so many of them, and not when they all saw the masked monster and not the sweet, awkward boy, but he was still her son and hearing him mocked and torn apart for grieving over someone he had obviously loved would be far more than she wanted to take.

“Show the rest of the Resistance Hux’s death. Not the rest. They need to know the General is dead, but I don’t think even Kylo Ren deserves to have his grief paraded in front of hundreds of people who hate him.” Leia said finally. Ackbar noded, and so did the rest of her command staff. Poe squeezed her shoulder, and she reached up to (hopefully reassuringly) pat his hand. No reason to let him worry about her.

\-------

  
She had spent quite a lot of time since then in her office, analyzing every bit of that video. It was cruel and she knew it, to put herself through this over and over again, but she had to pull every bit of meaning she could out of this. She didn’t have to be told that Ben loved the General, because the sound he made the moment Snoke began to electrocute the General was exactly the same sound she had wanted to make when she felt Han die.

It was strange, that seeing him grieve so wildly would give her a form of hope, but if he could grieve a loss - if he could feel something that made him _want_ to grieve, that meant Snoke hadn’t scraped _all_ the humanity out of her son. If he could love, even if he loved a man who was to all appearances a complete monster, that meant there might just still be Light in him.

There was a knock on her door, and she turned off the recording and hit the console to let her visitor in.

“General?” Poe said. “We have a recon report I think you’re gonna want to see.”

“Yes?” She asked. Poe put a stack of flimsis on her desk, and she frowned briefly, flipping through them. They were stills, of a hooded figure in browns, moving through a First Order supply depot on Waskiro they had been surveilling and doing their absolute best to wreck it, seemingly with the Force if the wide hand gestures were anything to guess by.

That was interesting enough, given how few living Forceusers there were. Then again, people could pass under the radar - she certainly had. What really drew her eye was that they were wielding Ben’s practically legendary red crossguard lightsaber. The still didn’t show the crackling effect she had heard described and seen in holos, but she was still sure. They were too slim of build to be Ben - unless he had lost a truly alarming amount of weight, but it had been too short a time from that other video, where he looked hale and healthy aside from his grieving breakdown. Besides, there would be no reason for Ben to anonymize himself further, or - as much as it grieved her - for him to be attacking the First Order, no matter how much she wanted to hope that his lover’s (she didn’t think she was reaching, assuming that, not when she had spent hours pouring over Ben begging for him to come back) death might have woken him up.

“Do we have any idea who this is?” She masked, looking from Poe to the flimsis and back again.

“Nobody seems to know,” Poe said. “We’ve got some intel from inside the Order that says Ren - um, Ben,” she noticed his hesitation and have him a reassuring nod, because if there was anyone she could understand hesitating over connecting her son to the monster he made himself it was definitely Poe, “took the _Finalizer_ out into the Unknown Regions on some kind of secret mission. We’re not sure what. So it’s not him.”

Leia sat back in her seat.

“Has this stranger been attacking Resistance supplies?” She asked. She knew they had depots in that area - it was neutral ground mostly by virtue of no one needing to claim it, and there were sometimes minor skirmishes when they bumped into each other.

“They haven’t caused problems for us yet, no - seems to be focused on the First Order?” Poe shrugged, looking rather uncomfortable. “I dunno, I really don’t get it,” he admitted finally. “So far they seem like they might be an ally, but…”

“But no one knows who they are, or how they got Ben’s lightsaber.” Leia finished. She frowned, and looked back down at the flimsis. “There isn’t much we can do, not without someone experienced in the Force to go after a potential wielder.” That was rational enough, she was sure. “Keep watch. Increase our surveillance in that sector - there might be more sightings, and I’d like to see what our vigilante friend is up to.”

Poe nodded, and left, leaving her with the stack of flimsis. She flipped through them again, looking for any angle on the figure’s face, but there was nothing.

Leia frowned. She wasn’t fond of seemingly unsolvable mysteries - her brother’s whereabouts had frustrated her for exactly that reason - but surely this wouldn’t remain unsolvable for long. They would find the identity of this mysterious vigilante, and then perhaps they would negotiate with him.

The Resistance could always use new allies, after all.


	6. The Fair and the Brave and the Good Must Die

Kylo had not, per se, expected to have to discuss his decision to take the _Finalizer_ into the Unknown Regions with the First Order’s High Command. Usually Hux handled that sort of thing - he was brilliant with politicking, or at least with making “Kylo Ren has another ridiculous errand and so the _Finalizer_ won’t be available for First Order business until he’s gotten whatever the fuck it is he needs,” which was how he had summarized those reports, sound less petulant and more professional.

Kylo was not good at “professional.” Or “diplomatic.” Or “politic.” He expected to blow into a room, terrify people into compliance, and blow out.

Apparently that worked less well over a holocall, or maybe it was just that the First Order’s High Command was less easily intimidated than the average officer.

“It is _absolutely required_ that I make the trip to Ilum as soon as possible,” Kylo said, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes at the holoprojections of the Admirals who made up the First Order’s High Command. “This is not a request, this is not a matter up for debate. I _will_ be taking the _Finalizer,_ I _will_ recover a new kyber crystal, and I _will_ build a new lightsaber. Unless you’d like me to cannibalize her turbolasers for one in the meantime?” He asked, attempting to affect boredom and finding it wasn’t really working.

He had wanted to wear Hux’s coat to the meeting - it fit him surprisingly well, but the coat was built to accommodate the body armor Hux wore under his uniform. (Kylo still remembered being surprised - and then delighted - to peel it all off and find how lovely and delicate Hux was underneath.) (He missed him. _So agonizingly much._ ) He had decided against it, because he wasn’t sure what sort of impression it would make.

“Lord Ren, it is absolutely the worst possible time for you to be taking the _Finalizer_ on some wild errand,” One of the Admirals - Mathof, Kylo thought, though he rarely remembered their names - protested. “We will need her able to return to Home World at a moment’s notice so that we can install the new General.” Kylo wanted to scream at the reminder that someone was going to be _replacing Hux._ That someone _needed to._ Because Hux was _gone._

“It is not _some wild errand,”_ Kylo snarled, and he shot up out of his seat. He had never attempted to choke anyone through a holoprojection before, though he knew Vader to have been capable of it. “And you are _clearly_ not moving quickly to select someone new. I’m surprised, usually you vultures are practically shredding each other for power.” He turned on his heel. “Unamo, cut the call,” he growled. She hesitated, briefly, and he glared, hard.

“Lord Ren, how dare -” Mathof started in, but he was cut off midsentence by Unamo following his order.

“Thank you,” Kylo said. “Chart course for Ilum, in the Unknown Regions,” he said, and then he stormed off the bridge.

 

\------

 

The shuttle to Ilum’s surface was tense and silent, mostly. Mitaka had very gently insisted that Kylo bring a Stormtrooper detachment, and Phasma herself had insisted on leading it, so he wasn’t _alone,_ but he _felt_ a little alone. He had given in to the urge to take Hux’s coat, this time, despite part of him protesting that it would lose Hux’s scent if he did that. He would need it, for whatever obnoxious trial Ilum decided to throw at him. 

If he could even resonate with the crystals here anymore, since he was older and...Darker, now, than he had been when he came here as a youngling with Skywalker and a few of the other young future Jedi.

(All of them but Skywalker were dead now. By his hand. No use thinking of them.)

He also thought antsily of what might await them when they left Ilum's system and were able to get back in communication with the rest of the First Order. That was part of the reason, he gathered, for the protests against it - the  _Finalizer_ would be temporarily incommunicado by virtue of how far off the beaten path Ilum was. Probably the first thing waiting would be a request to return to Home World and pick up whatever puffed up bureaucrat would be replacing Hux.

Kylo didn't even know who they were, and he hated them.

“What should we expect on the surface, Lord Ren?” Phasma’s voice startled him out of his reverie, and he looked back at her.

“Not much,” Kylo said. “Ilum is an uninhabited iceball; its main importance is that it contains a cave where kyber crystals grow, accessible through an ancient Jedi temple. Once, this was an extremely sacred place to the Jedi. Though I doubt you or your troopers are interested in the history lesson. You will be able to shelter inside the temple, and I should be out by nightfall.” Phasma nodded.

“Understood, sir.” she said, and then she sat back. He appreciated her frank respect, and her lack of questions. She had regarded him briefly when they first boarded, recognizing the greatcoat, but had just squeezed his shoulder and boarded the shuttle. No awkward attempts at comfort or conversation, just a simple gesture of solidarity. He appreciated it far more than anything else.

They touched down not far from the temple entrance, and Kylo pressed forward through the driving snow until they reached the wall of ice that hid the temple.

He drew in a breath and extended his hand, focusing on moving the blocks that concealed the temple entrance.

There was a clattering of ice, and they fell aside. The door, too, was pushed open with the Force, and Kylo strode into the halls.

He was almost surprised when he wasn’t thrown out on his ass, like the sheer concentrated Light in this place ought to reject him.

Well. That was just fine, in the end.

Luke had worked some great contraption with the Force to melt the doorway to the actual cave, but a sobbing, fearful Ben - the last back, from the far depths where he had found his first crystal - had discovered that the terrifying ice wall that would supposedly trap him was just that - ice - and therefore just as fragile.

Kylo Ren did not bother with the ritual contraption. He slammed the ice away with the Force.

“The doorway will refreeze behind me over the course of the day. Do not follow me, and do not panic if it freezes entirely before I return. I can break it just as easily from the other side.” He said, and Phasma gave him a sharp nod of acknowledgement.

He strode into the caves, and _felt._

This place was alarmingly familiar, and part of Kylo feared - irrationally - that he would be set back decades just by being here.

He bundled a little tighter in Hux’s coat, inhaled the lingering spicy-sweet scent of his favorite cologne, and reminded himself that he was not ten year old Ben Solo.

He wished, suddenly and achingly, that Hux _was_ there, waiting for him with the trooper squadron. Or maybe, just to be petulant, he might have dragged Hux into the caves with him, stealing kisses as he followed the Force deeper into the caves. And that was definitely what he was following - he could hear a soft _singing,_ a high, pure melody, calling to him from deep in the cave.

Deeper, even, than Ben Solo had gone, because Ben Solo had a very different trial than Kylo Ren. At least, Kylo suspected so. Ben had still been afraid of the dark and the Dark, afraid of his power, afraid of the cajoling voice of Snoke in his head.

(Kylo did not like to think too hard on how glaringly _absent_ Snoke had been since Hux’s death.)

Kylo found himself at the edge of a half-frozen lake, and when he got there he realized that what he thought was one song was two, intertwining beautifully. There was a bright glow on the island in the middle, and Kylo started towards it, focusing with the Force - but the ice chunks floating there refused to still, even with him imposing his will on them.

It was far too dangerous to risk. If he slipped and fell off an ice chunk, he would end up in subzero water - he would freeze to death long before he could make it back to shore, pulled under by the weight of his armor. He squinted, and - yes, as the light moved off the lake, it refroze, a more solid path.

Kylo swore softly and sat down on the edge of the lake, bundling himself in Hux’s coat.

“This isn’t subtle,” he said, out loud, to no one in particular. “I get the point being made about patience, but _honestly,_ do we really have to do this, I’m not even a fucking Jedi.”

There was no answer. Of course there was no answer.

So he closed his eyes and meditated, tuning out everything but the flow of the Force around and through him. Like that, he could hear the song from the island even clearer, a melancholy tune that somehow managed to tug at his heart.

It made him think, unfairly in his opinion, of his lost General. Especially when half the melody fell away and only the other part was left, sad, longing, _alone._

He opened his eyes.

The lake was frozen over, and he took a step onto it, finding it reassuringly solid. He took a deep breath.

“Okay,” he told himself under his breath, “this is fine. I can do this.” He had hated ice-skating as a kid, the one time his mother got him to try it, and he was reminded of why taking a second step - the ice was slick and smooth, and he could barely get purchase.

When Kylo wound up on his ass, sliding onto that little little island by sheer lack of friction, he was especially glad no one was down there with him. It was _undignified_ and _painful_ and everything a Knight of Ren should not have to endure.

He pushed himself up, and started briefly.

There was not one glowing kyber crystal, but _two._

When his fingers curled around them, for a moment, he swore Hux _was_ there, that he saw a flash of grey-green-blue eyes and red hair and that little smile that no one else ever got to see, that he felt a second hand on his, encouraging him on.

He held the crystals to his chest and wove his way back to Phasma and the remaining troopers, ducking under the refreezing door just before it would have frozen low enough that it would be undignified to do so.

He felt less alone, then, than he had since Hux died. He even managed to smile when he told Phasma their mission was complete and they could return to the _Finalizer._

He had done something right, survived the Force’s tests even though he had feared that the light in the Ilum temple would burn him to ashes. And there had been something, at the end - a moment, a connection.

Perhaps Hux was watching over him, somehow. That was a comforting thought.


	7. Gonna Get Me a Taste of Some Chaos First

Systems away, tucked into his ship in the anonymous port of Hockaleg, Hux jolted out of meditation, breathing heavily. Projecting to Kylo, even drawing on the immense Force powers in the Ilum caves, had not been easy.

It was, however, worth it. It had been worth it to see Kylo, for a moment, to touch him, and to hear the singing resonance of the two kyber crystals he carried out of the caves. To be assured that there was enough of Kylo still there for Hux to save, that Snoke hadn’t already begun the process of pulling him apart and remolding him.

“Are you alright?” Obi-Wan asked. Hux coughed, and then nodded.

“Tired, but alright.” He said, and he leaned back against the wall of the ship, closing his eyes and trying to get his breathing back under control. “I saw him. I think I touched him.” He flexed his fingers - still gloved, though he had traded his uniform for something less identifying. “I...am fairly certain he saw me, though I doubt he thought it anything more than his imagination.” Obi-Wan nodded, and Anakin sat down next to him, clapping a hand on his shoulder companionably.

“Hey, you did a pretty huge thing, and you’re still learning to use the Force. You should be proud of yourself!” He said.

“I am,” Hux said, “I’m just also exhausted.” He pushed himself off the ship’s floor. “I’m going to rest, and then we’re going to destroy the First Order depot here.” Hockaleg was a fairly well-used shipping port in the Outer Rim, though it had done much better under the Empire than it did under the Republic. (Which, in all honesty, was true of many places, in Hux’s opinion.) The First Order maintained a large warehouse, usually full of munitions - Hux was fairly certain it would be _spectacular_ when destroyed.

 

\------

 

Hux took a position on a ridge above the port to survey it, glad for how difficult he was to spot. His new brown smuggler’s outfit blended well with the terrain, and it anonymized him well, with a scarf he could pull over the lower half of his face, a hood, and no visible insignias of any kind. The cloak attached to the hood fell over the lightsaber at his waist, protecting it from prying eyes until he actually drew it.  He set up the sniper rifle he’d acquired on one of the first planets he’d stopped on after Cardooine - heavily illegally modified, a beautiful piece of weaponry that Hux would ache to part with. Perhaps he wouldn’t, even once he was back with the First Order.

For now, he used its scope to scout the warehouse - there were more troopers standing guard, here, than there had been. Obviously word was spreading, and a small part of him was proud of the First Order for getting off its ass and increasing security. Someone, somewhere in the remaining chain of command, was competent.

“What are my odds of Force-persuading all of them to leave?” Hux asked.

“Not good,” Obi-Wan replied.

“Too many,” Anakin agreed. Hux sighed. He had tried to keep primarily to loss of goods, because those were replaceable - personnel was much less so. He’d known he’d have to kill someone eventually, and it looked like “eventually” was “now.”

“Fine,” he said, and then he took a deep breath in. Ren had once compared his focusing techniques for sniping to meditating, and Hux understood why, now, on a much more personal level than he had before - as he lined up his shot, he could feel the Force flowing through him, focused by his intent and his will.

He breathed out, and fired.

The first trooper dropped, and the others reacted with shock and horror, which gave him just enough time to line up shots and take down three more, half the visible force. The other four were taking cover by then, wisely ducking into the warehouse. He was fairly certain they would be calling for backup, which meant he had to move quickly. He stood, packing his rifle quickly and slinging it over the shoulder, and then leapt down from the ridge onto the roof of a nearby warehouse - a jump he never would have been able to accomplish without the Force. His next steps carried him off that roof and to the ground.

Most people were fleeing from the Order’s warehouse - good, fewer potential civilian casualties.

Hux drew Kylo’s lightsaber, feeling the flare of power that came from lighting it up, and walked with obvious deadly purpose towards the First Order warehouse. He didn’t even have to touch the door to blow it off its hinges and inside, and then he brought up the lightsaber, easily deflecting the incoming blaster bolts. He could feel them in the Force, feel how they hummed and sliced through the air, and bringing his blade up to meet them felt easy, almost instinctual.

He registered distantly that he could feel his heart racing, could feel adrenaline pumping through his veins.

It had been a very long time since Hux was in proper combat - not since the Academy, really - and spars and training exercises just were not the same. There was a loud scream, and Hux reached for its source, lifting the trooper out from behind the set of crates he was using for cover with the Force and then throwing him into a wall.

Hux felt him die, and behind his scarf, he grinned ferally.

Three more.

He moved deeper into the warehouse, grabbing and flinging crates with the Force, and he revealed another one of the troopers, close enough to run him through with the lightsaber. He died with a choked gurgle.

Two.

He found the third guard cowering pathetically behind a stack of crates, no longer even bothering to shoot at him. Hux took his head off, a quicker death than he felt the coward deserved, but he didn’t have time to play with his food.

One.

The last trooper revealed himself, activating the Z6 baton and charging at Hux. Hux grinned, and met it with his lightsaber. So they’d sent riot control troopers - good planning, honestly, Hux was impressed. The baton absorbed the saber strike, and Hux tucked that away as impressive proof of concept, really. They were _designed_ to be able to, but there weren’t many lightsabers to test against and Ren wasn’t exactly willing to participate in weapons testing for the most part. He’d heard FN-2199 had successfully deflected a lightsaber on Takodana with one, but seeing it in action was a different matter than simply hearing about it in a report.

Still, unfortunately for the trooper fighting him, not even the Z6 batons could absorb the Force.

Hux threw him across the room, into a stack of crates, and then storde over, putting his lightsaber through the Trooper’s chest.

“Holy _shit,”_ Anakin said from somewhere behind him, as Hux began popping open crates, looking for some decent explosives he could use to take the building down. “That was _vicious.”_

“When I was in the academy,” Hux said, and his tone was bland, “I once ripped a cadet’s throat out with my teeth when he demonstrated a lack of understanding of the word _no._ ” He wasn’t ashamed of his viciousness - it had carried him far, and was carrying him through this. “Again, I remind you, if this bothers you, you might have considered recruiting someone closer to your own moral alignment - ah!” He pushed the lid off a crate filled with high-grade explosives, the kind that had been used to take down Starkiller’s oscillator. “Perfect.” He scooped several up, stuck the detonator into a pocket on his tunic, and then moved to the walls, climbing crate stacks to begin sticking them up.

“It had to be you,” Anakin said, though he sounded slightly displeased.

“You said that before,” Hux said, “but you never explained why.”

“There’s no one else Ben trusts,” Anakin said, and that gave Hux pause. “He wouldn’t listen to Luke, or to Rey - his own father tried to tell him that Snoke was using him, and he _knows_ it’s true, but he brushed it aside and just. Killed Han anyway.” There was something guilty in Anakin’s expression, and Hux wanted to press, but now didn’t seem like the moment. "So you may be a terrifying, vicious bastard with buckets of blood on your hands, but you're the only one he'd ever listen to. The only one who can make him see that Snoke really does just want to use him for his powers for as long as he can, before he...I don't know what Snoke's endgame is, really, but I think we both know it can't be good, and that it definitely doesn't include Ben still alive."

Put that way, Hux supposed he could understand why it had to be him. Ren let few people in, and he had completely rejected his light-side family as far as Hux was aware. One of them telling him to come home or to leave Snoke would be nothing, but Hux knew Ren would listen if _he_ said it.

Ren had once told him that Hux was the only person who seemed to care about _him_ first, before his powers or his family or anything else, and it was true at least that Hux felt that way. It didn’t matter that he had once been Ben Organa Solo, or that he was one of the most powerful Force users alive. First and foremost, he was Kylo Ren, ridiculous and overdramatic and angry, but also shy and surprisingly gentle when he wanted to be. More than that, he was the man Hux loved.

“I hope you’re not expecting me to bring him back to the light,” Hux said, finally, after a long moment of consideration, “because I don’t think I can do that.” He was too selfish, firstly, because he knew that Ren going back to the light would mean losing him. Hux was not meant to be a Jedi, that was obvious.

“Just get him away from Snoke,” Anakin said, “what he does after that is up to him and nobody else.”

Hux nodded.

“There is nothing that would please me more than to free Ren from Snoke, by whatever means necessary, I can promise you that much.” He placed the last few bombs, and then headed for the exit. He could hear boots coming closer - the reinforcements he had expected to be called. It was time to get out.

He made it back up to the ridge, and pressed the detonator.

As expected, the explosion was _spectacular._


	8. You Hear Me Howl by the Light of the Moon

Kylo shut himself up in his room to meditate with his new crystal. He had turned the second one over in his hands and considered using it, too, but something told him not to, to set it aside.

He was willing to listen to the Force, a little, because there was no other source of guidance left. Snoke was silent, Hux was gone, all he had left was the pure will of the Force.

The  _ Finalizer  _ was turning towards Home World, to collect the new General - former Admiral Edthes Tarkin, practically the ass-end of Hux’s preferred line of succession; the youngest member of the Admiralty Board, arrogant and untested in any kind of real combat situation, getting by on his name and, in Kylo’s opinion, not much else.. Kylo was not eager to welcome him, and he hoped he was still working on his lightsaber by the time they arrived, so he had a plausible excuse to snub him. Even if not, Kylo had put up orders not to be disturbed except in cases of actual, desperate emergency - his explicit instructions to Mitaka had been “if anyone disturbs me for anything short of a coordinated Resistance attack on this vessel, I will test my new lightsaber out on  _ them, _ ” which Mitaka had accepted with remarkable aplomb and the look of a man who had suddenly learned how to delegate to people he disliked.

(Mitaka might have been starting to grow on Kylo, a little.)

Millicent settled herself in Kylo’s lap as he focused on the crystal, and he found himself glad for her comforting warmth. She was a physical focus point, an anchor so that he didn’t fall too far into the focusing exercise he was performing to prime his kyber crystal. It was  _ his _ , distinctly, in a way that the one he had used for his previous lightsaber...wasn’t, so much. Snoke had not trusted him to craft his own crystal (still didn’t, apparently) and so he had recovered one from Moraband, along with a ‘saber handle to function as his blueprint for the one he intended to build. 

The last ‘saber that had been fully his was long gone, discarded in the mess of corpses he had left at Skywalker’s Jedi temple. Perhaps Organa still had it. That was a thought, a preserved relic of her dead son.

How tragic for her.

He lost himself in the ebb and flow of the Force, breaking only occasionally to ensure Millicent h adequate food and water, and that her litter box was cleaned - and she was not afraid of nudging him out of meditation to inform him one of the three needed to be attended to. As much as he could sustain himself on the power of the Force (sort of, temporarily) he could not do the same for her.

The crystal still sang in the Force, but its timbre changed, becoming lower and richer as it attuned more to Kylo Ren. When he was certain it was where it needed to be, he let go of the crystal and pulled out the lightsaber parts he had brought with him from Snoke’s citadel. They would only make a traditional handle, not the crossguard his old ‘saber had required, and the message was clear -  _ absolutely no mistakes. _ There was no room for a flawed crystal, for a flawed lightsaber. This one had to be perfect.

So he fit the pieces together with delicate precision, ensuring they were properly ordered, and when he was certain the lightsaber was perfect, he stood, feeling the joints in his legs pop. Millicent regarded him from her current seat, on his bed, as imperiously as he imagined her owner might have were he present.

Kylo flicked the ‘saber on, and it lit perfectly, no longer the flickering unstable red blade that was so associated with the image of Kylo Ren.

His new ‘saber glowed a fiery orange - the color of Starkiller’s sunsets, and of his General’s hair.

If he could not have Hux, at least he would always have this.

 

\-------

 

He had a droid deliver a meal to his quarters, as much as passed for a meal shipboard, and when it arrived - biscuits and a meaty gravy, actually flavorful thanks, he suspected, to their recent supply run, an unfortunately lessened crew number, and possibly to General Tarkin being something of a ponce - he dug in, sharing a few bits with a very pleased Millicent. It felt good, satisfying, to have a lightsaber again, to know that when he inevitably went back into combat against the Resistance he would be properly armed.

There was a knock at the door and he frowned, setting the remains of his meal on the floor for the cat - Hux would have scolded him endlessly, but Hux wasn’t there - and scooped up his new lightsaber, striding to the door and opening it. He knew who it was before he saw them, and he leaned in the doorway, trying his best to look some combination of annoyed and bored.

“General Tarkin,” he said, voice dry. “What an unexpected pleasure. I thought I left very clear instruction with Lieutenant Mitaka that I was not to be disturbed except in the case of serious emergency.” 

Tarkin was shorter than him by perhaps five inches, whipcord-thin, and blandly handsome. His sandy blond hair was coiffed perfectly, and he was regarding Kylo with sharp brown eyes and holding a bottle of wine and two glasses.

“You did, but I thought that since you ordered dinner, you might be done with whatever it was keeping you shut away. My Lord.” He added the title almost as an afterthought. “May I come in?” He was already working his way around Kylo, ducking into the room without waiting for an answer, and the door slid shut behind him. Millicent hissed, darting back into Kylo’s bedchamber.

Kylo wanted to follow her.

“Since you’ve already made yourself comfortable, please, by all means,” Kylo said, layering sarcasm as thickly as he could manage. Tarkin seemed wholly unaffected, taking a seat at the table Kylo had set up for his lightsaber construction project and setting down both glasses, filling them with a rather generous amount of wine. Kylo suppressed a sigh and took a seat of his own. Obviously the new General intended some form of horrendous social pleasantry. He took the glass, but did not drink - he’d indulged a few times with Hux, but it was about the company, then, than the alcohol. The company here was not nearly as pleasant.

“I fear we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, Lord Ren, and we haven’t even had a chance to properly speak,” Tarkin said, and Kylo wanted to roll his eyes, just barely suppressing the urge. Tarkin regarded Kylo, and the Knight had the uncomfortable feeling of being rather exposed. “I understand you and the previous General had an...arrangement?” Kylo narrowed his eyes. “I can see why, now that I’ve seen you without that silly mask - in all the holos you’re this faceless, black...presence. But you’re rather pretty under all that, aren’t you?”

“What exactly are you  _ suggesting,  _ General?” Kylo asked, feeling his skin crawl. What did this disgusting worm mean to imply about his relationship with Hux? About  _ him? _

“Merely that we might come to a similar agreement as you had with the late --” Tarkin was cut off, rather suddenly, by Kylo closing the Force around his throat. The Knight stood up, and dragged Tarkin out of his chair and toward the door with nothing but the power of his will as Tarkin scrabbled at his neck.

“Whatever you think of me,  _ General, _ ” and Kylo managed to make the title an insult, “I am not some  _ prize  _ for whomever wears the First Order’s bars. So if you want any kind of agreement between us that does not involve me  _ snapping your neck,  _ I suggest you put those thoughts out of your mind.” He yanked the door open with the Force, and threw Tarkin out, shutting the door in his face.

Then, he whirled on his heel and stormed towards the ‘fresher. Just being  _ near  _ that scumsucking, entitled bastard made him feel like he needed a shower.

 

\-----

 

The next person who interrupted him came not more than a few hours after Kylo ejected Tarkin from his quarters. He threw the door open with a growl, glaring down at Mitaka, who, to his credit, barely flinched.

“I understand you met the General, sir,” he said evenly, and Kylo briefly scraped over his mind - Mitaka was about as impressed with Tarkin as Kylo. 

“I cannot believe he’s intended to replace Hux,” the Knight snarled. “Was he the only one left who would accept the damn appointment?”

“Yes, actually,” Mitaka said, frowning. “But, sir, there’s something you need to see - intelligence reports that I think will interest you. We haven’t shown Tarkin yet, they’re more your area of expertise.” 

“We?” Kylo asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Er, Phasma and I, sir, we were the ones who received the - come with me, please?” Mitaka looked just desperate and nervous enough for Kylo to decide that this might be worth his time. He stepped out of his rooms, calling his lightsaber to his hand as an afterthought and snapping it into the holster at his hip. Mitaka led him to a private conference room, where Phasma was waiting.

“You’re going to want to sit down, sir,” Phasma said. He frowned, and sat, and she activated the holoproj in the middle of the table. What played looked like security footage, inside some kind of warehouse, and there was no sound, but he could clearly see a cloaked figure moving into the room, and he understood immediately why Phasma and Mitaka had brought this to him. The mystery figure was clearly using the Force, blasting the doors open and --

Kylo’s heart stopped.

“Play that back,” he said. Phasma did, obligingly, and he watched a second time as the mysterious figure brought up a crackling crossguard lightsaber to deflect the blaster bolts coming from the four probably-terrified Stormtroopers. He watched the rest in silence, watched the figure fling boxes and people and slaughter the ‘troopers and then steal explosives to plant throughout the building, and the entire time, he felt a hot rage growing in his chest. First, Tarkin insinuated that Kylo's relationship with Hux was some kind of  _recreatable casual political arrangement,_ and now he was seeing someone, some  _ stranger,  _ use  _ his  _ lightsaber. The one he had  _ buried with Hux. _

“Sir?” Mitaka asked, sounding concerned. Kylo realized he was shaking with rage.

“That’s my lightsaber. I. I buried it with Hux, and  _ that’s my lightsaber.” _ He wanted to scream, but he kept his voice dangerously even.

“Are you certain?” Phasma asked. “Could it just be one similar in design?” Obviously, she liked the implication no more than he did.

“I’m certain. The design of the hilt - the crossguard - is outdated but necessary; the kyber crystal that powers my old lightsaber is cracked slightly and unstable because of it. Here, look,” Kylo brought up the new ‘saber, deploying the much stabler orange blade. “My old one flickered and crackled - all of that is because of the cracked crystal.” Both officers nodded. “The likelihood of someone else just happening to have a red crossguard-style lightsaber with a cracked crystal? So low as to be impossible.” He shut off the blade and reholstered it, and leaned over the table. “Where was this?”

“Our warehouse at the Hockaleg port, but before that there were reports of this person on Waskiro and Cardooine.” Mitaka replied. Kylo frowned. Hockaleg, Waskiro, Cardooine…

“In that order?” He asked. “Cardooine, then Waskiro, then Hockaleg?” Mitaka nodded.

“Is that significant, sir?” The Lieutenant asked.

“It may be.” He said. “I have an idea of where he might go next, if my theory is correct - get Nav to set a course for Anthus. I’d like to meet this bold saboteur.” Phasma and Mitaka both nodded, and left, leaving Kylo alone with the holo. He glared, watching again as the stranger slaughtered his way through the unfortunate Stormtoopers. “We’re going to meet face to face,” Kylo promised, fiercely, “and I am going to  _ make  _ you give that ‘saber back.”


	9. That's How You Know that I'm Coming for You

The moment Hux stepped out of his ship and onto Anthus, he could  _ feel  _ the shift in the Force. It was a strange feeling, to know definitively that something was coming...something was  _ waiting,  _ and he stood very still for a long moment and then adjusted his disguise, checking to make sure Ren’s lightsaber was still where it belonged. 

“Something’s coming,” Anakin said. “Or -- someone?” 

“I’d figured that out, shockingly,” Hux replied, voice low. This was a crowded spaceport - he didn’t need people  _ noticing  _ him talking to nothing. 

“It might be Ben,” Obi-Wan speculated, and Hux frowned faintly.

“You really should stop calling him that, he hasn’t been Ben for a very long time,” he said, but he quickened his pace anyway, feeling around him for any stronger presences in the Force. There were a few small lights - smugglers who might be just a little more lucky and a little more charismatic, mercenaries whose aim was just that much more true. People who would never be Jedi, but who were more in-tune with the Force than the average person. 

Nothing to justify the chills crawling up his spine, or the goosebumps rising on his skin. Nothing that made him think  _ danger. _ Certainly nothing that could be Kylo Ren - he hadn’t felt the man in the Force before, but he was certain he would know Kylo’s Force signature the moment he felt it, the way he knew his lover’s voice and what the little shifts in his body language meant.

“He’s not here,” Hux said, certain of it. “Not at the port, at least.” 

“He may still be on planet,” Obi-Wan warned. “And he still doesn’t know you’re alive, which means if he knows about your activities…”

“He likely thinks I stole his lightsaber out of the grave of his dead lover, yes, I had managed to work that out for myself,” Hux said, sarcasm coming thicker as a cover for his worry. There was an underlying concern, a flaw in his plan, and that was that Kylo would kill him before they had a chance to speak. Kylo Ren in a range was a terrifying thing, and while Hux was generally pleased with his lightsaber skills, he wasn’t sure he could match Kylo on a  _ good  _ day, never mind a Kylo fueled by rage and grief. 

He would just have to hope.

He pulled his hood down further and his scarf up higher, the prickling warning in the Force screaming of  _ danger  _ refusing to calm.

He had to push forward. Whatever was waiting, he was going to meet it head on.

 

\------

 

Inside the Anthus warehouse, Kylo paced back and forth, anxiously turning the hilt of his new lightsaber over in his hands. He could feel a powerful Force presence approaching - unknown, but somehow achingly, heartrendingly familiar. It raised goosebumps on his skin and sent something crawling up his spine, and he knew it  _ had  _ to be the stranger, the thief, the one who dared to wield  _ his  _ lightsaber so openly.

He had followed the trail here - wanted to believe it was a coincidence, because surely there was no way someone other than him or Hux could have known those planets and what they meant. Each one had been somewhere they had gone together, during Hux’s rare liberties, for excursions both had refused to call “dates” but that were effectively such. They had been in public, though incognito - but Hux was Hux, and was recognizable, so perhaps…

Someone had figured out where they had gone, and when. It was a taunt, directed at him, just like the lightsaber, Kylo was certain of it. He, Mitaka, and Phasma had poured over port records from the planets the stranger had been spotted on, looking for commonalities, and had found  _ one  _ ship that arrived the day of the attacks, and left the day after. This saboteur was not as clever as he thought he was, clearly.

So Kylo had gone to Anthus, and waited. Phasma contacted him when  _ that ship  _ appeared on the docking records, and he beelined for the warehouse, settling in and waiting. He was not alone - there were a few Stormtroopers, so it didn’t look too suspicious, but they were all under orders to retreat as soon as he engaged the stranger. A few of them were probably going to die - an acceptable sacrifice, in Kylo’s opinion, and mostly just kind of vaguely unfortunate. He had no particular attachment to the ‘troopers or the program, except that it was Hux’s. (Hux would reprimand him for being so wasteful with ‘trooper lives, probably, but it was necessary to the success of the mission.)

He had pushed all the crates against the wall, creating a wide, clear space in the center of the warehouse, to give them room to duke it out - lightsaber duels weren’t exactly subdued affairs - and he took advantage of it now, running forms to center his mind and calm himself. He couldn’t be agitated going into this fight - letting his emotions get ahead of him had been the primary cause of his defeat on Starkiller. Letting his emotions get ahead of him had nearly gotten him killed, and had definitely gotten  _ Hux  _ killed. 

There was a scream outside, and Kylo tensed, slipping out of his forms. The ‘troopers outside the warehouse came running in, less two of their number.

“He’s here,” one said, and Kylo waved them to the back exit.

“Out. I’m going to face him  _ alone.” _ The Knight insisted. He did not have to tell them twice, obviously. They practically tripped over each other to get out.

The stranger strode in, confident as anything, rifle slung over his back and lightsaber activated, and Kylo forgot everything he had been telling himself about emotional moderation seeing  _ his lightsaber  _ in  _ someone else’s hands.  _ With an animal noise of fury, he leapt forward, swinging his new blade blindly. It met the crackling plasma hum of the other one, and the battle was joined.

His opponent was fierce and confident, meeting his strikes and ducking around him with a cleverness that might have impressed Kylo were he not so howlingly furious. Vaguely, he noticed that stranger only ever seemed to fight defensively, never going for the attack even when Kylo was somewhat aware he was leaving himself open.

That was strange, but he ignored it, preferring instead to press forward, snarling like a rabid animal and backing his opponent into the wall.

With them pinned there, Kylo leaned in, bringing the vents of his old lightsaber dangerously close to its wielder's shoulder.

“Where. Did you get.  _ That lightsaber?” _ Kylo growled, fury in every word.

“You left it for me,” the stranger replied, and Kylo staggered back as if he’d been hit, all his fury draining away to be replaced with shock and what might have been the barest flickering flame of  _ hope _ . “I see you’ve made a new one for yourself, too.”

He knew that voice. He  _ knew that voice.  _ He had been  _ longing  _ to hear that voice for weeks, nearly desperate enough to dig out old propaganda recordings and listen to them just to have  _ something. _

The stranger - not a stranger, not really, not if that voice belonged to who he thought it did, and no  _ wonder  _ the Force presence had felt familiar but strange - deactivated his lightsaber and pushed back his hood and pulled down his scarf, and Kylo stared, heart racing. His lightsaber slipped from his suddenly boneless fingers, turning off and clattering on the warehouse floor. This couldn’t be real. It had to be some kind of trick. 

And yet.

_ “Hux?” _


	10. Gonna Find You Alone in the Dark of the Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story now has an 8tracks
> 
>  
> 
> [playlist](http://8tracks.com/songstresskitsune/now-i-m-back-from-the-grave)
> 
>  
> 
> ! This is a selection of the music on my writing playlist for the story, and is definitely mood music while also kind of specifically fitting the story~
> 
> Also, I'm working on review responses for the last chapter/all the stuff that's come in the last couple days, but please know I am delightfully overwhelmed by y'all's absolutely lovely response to the past few chapters~ It is what has enabled me to get them out so fast!

Hux had run the scenario a thousand times, considered it every possible way in his head, thought about what he would say and how he would say it, was so sure he knew exactly what he was going to do.

Nothing could have adequately prepared him for what actually facing Kylo would be like - actually looking in his eyes and seeing the mix of suspicion and hope and fear slowly blooming there, looking back at him as he stared, transfixed, at something he was sure couldn’t be real.

Hux discarded all his carefully-considered words and stepped forward, placing his hands on either side of Kylo’s face and drawing him down to rest their foreheads together. Kylo was trembling under his hands, and there was the softest sound that almost sounded like a sob.

“Hello, Ren,” Hux said, voice soft and gentler than he ever had been. Kylo opened his eyes and stared at him with something very close to mistrust, and Hux flinched, just a little. He should have been prepared for that, for Kylo not to take his revival at face value, but it still stung.

“This isn’t possible,” he said, very quietly. “You were dead, I saw you die, I  _ felt  _ you die, you were  _ dead, _ ” and then suddenly he was pushing himself aggressively into Hux’s space, backing him up until Hux’s back hit the wall, “you must be a clone, implanted with his memories, that sounds like something Hux would do, leave behind a clone of himself.” Kylo seemed to be talking to himself more than to Hux, and the former General had to admit it  _ did  _ sound like something he would do, and maybe something he ought to consider for the future. 

Then, Kylo shoved his hands up under Hux’s tunic, and Hux inhaled sharply, trying to push past his immediate response to focus on what Kylo was actually doing. Fingers followed the Lichtenburg figures that now riddled his torso, a leftover effect of Snoke’s Force lightning, until they found an older scar - one down his abdomen, the relic of an emergency appendectomy while he was at the Academy. It was more ragged and crude than most medical scars, owing to it having happened in the earlier days of the First Order when medical equipment like bacta and scar-reduction ointments were harder to come by. 

He watched Kylo’s expression, watched his eyes widen when he found the scar, something a clone wouldn’t have. Hux had no doubt Kylo knew every inch of him by feel, because he knew Kylo the same way, could probably have drawn a map of his freckles and scars if pressed. Brown eyes moved from Hux’s face to the lightsaber clipped to his belt to his partially hiked-up tunic, which revealed the bottom of the scar.

And suddenly his arms were around Hux’s waist, yanking him forward into a tight, almost desperate embrace, and Kylo buried his face against Hux’s neck, shoulders shaking with sobs. Hux wound his arms around Kylo’s shoulders, fingers carding through his hair.

“It’s you, it’s really you, you're  _ alive, _ you’re here, you’re -  _ Hux,”  _ Kylo gasped desperately, between sobs. “Did you...was all this so I would come find you?”

“I couldn’t exactly fly a ship up to the  _ Finalizer, _ ” Hux said, slightly pointedly, and Kylo let out the tiniest almost-laugh.

“It worked, I’m here,” he said, and then, softly, “Force, I missed you so much, it hurt  _ so much  _ to keep expecting to see you and then you weren’t there. And your replacement is a  _ prick,  _ and also an  _ idiot,  _ I had to coordinate this with Mitaka and Phasma because he’s fucking useless,” Kylo moved his head just enough so that he was looking Hux in the face instead of sobbing on his shoulder, and Hux could see tear tracks down his cheeks. “They’re going to be  _ so glad  _ to have you back.”

And then Ren gave up all pretense and kissed him, hot and fierce, and Hux felt something electric between them, and for a brief, dizzying moment, he felt Ren’s emotions and sensations as much as his own, felt Ren’s desperation and grief and exultant joy and, underlying it all, a trembling fear that this wasn’t real and Hux was going to melt away in his arms. Hux leaned more fiercely into the kiss as a counter to that fear, and he felt  _ something  _ happening in the Force, something binding him and Ren together.

Ren must have felt it too, because he broke the kiss, trembling faintly and still looking so terribly raw and desperate. Hux wanted to keep kissing him, to hold him until he stopped looking like that, to chase away the fear and the grief and assure Kylo that he was here and alive and real and not going anywhere.

“I’m here, Ren, I promise, it really is me," Hux said, voice still gentle. 

_ “How?” _ Kylo’s voice cracked, and Hux glanced down to see his hands clenching and unclenching, like he wasn’t sure what to do with them. “It’s not possible, you can’t be - I  _ felt  _ you die, you were  _ gone,  _ how are you  _ back?” _

“The Force,” Hux said, “somehow. I don’t properly understand it, but as far as I can tell - your grandfather and his former Jedi Master somehow manipulated the Force to bring me back, and I gained Force sensitivity in the process - or I always had it, and it was somehow repressed? Neither Kenobi nor Skywalker was entirely clear on that.”

“ _ Kenobi?” _ Kylo frowned. “ _ Skywalker?  _ I don’t understand - reviving the dead is supposed to be  _ impossible,  _ and if you were Force-sensitive I’m sure I would have known, or Snoke would have, I... _ ” _ His hands were moving over Hux’s torso like he had to confirm for himself, still, that Hux was still solid and present.

“There’s not a lot that’s impossible when you’re one with the Force,” Anakin said, from somewhere to their left, and Kylo let go of Hux to spin towards the voice, but kept one hand on the former General’s shoulder as if he felt he needed the physical touch to keep Hux with him and assure himself Hux was still real.

“ _ Grandfather?”  _ His voice cracked in abject shock.

“Oh, so  _ now  _ you can communicate with him,” Hux said dryly. Anakin grinned broadly.

“Yes, yes I can,” he said, sounding immensely pleased with himself. For about the fiftieth time since meeting him - at the low estimate - Hux really, really wanted to punch a Force ghost. “I’ve been trying to get through to you for so long.” The ghost stepped forward, and put a hand on Kylo’s shoulder. “We’ll talk later, I promise, now that we can. For now, you two have a lot to work out.” Anakin vanished, and Kylo stared at the spot where he had been, eyes wide.

“...He really did go back to the Light at the end,” he said, softly, “or he wouldn’t look like that.” Kylo swallowed. “So. Snoke lied. About that.”

“Snoke lies a lot,” Hux said, but his voice was gentle, not reproachful. 

“You always saw him so much clearer than me,” Kylo sighed. “Come with me - I think I can get you back onto your ship unnoticed. The  _ Finalizer  _ deserves to have her rightful General back at the helm.”

 

\-----

 

Part of getting Hux to the ship unnoticed required Kylo to pretend to arrest him, for the benefit of the ‘troopers on planet with them. Hux had pulled his scarf and hood back up, reanonymizing himself, and Ren hauled him through the port’s warehouse district with his hands in binders behind his back.

Hux felt them before he saw them - two bright Force presences, and he felt a rush of Kylo’s emotions over their nascent bond, a scramble of  _ nomineprotectcan’tlosehimagain  _ and he wanted to reach out and squeeze his hand, but instead he just leaned over and let Kylo pull him closer, protectively, though it would look threatening to an outsider. 

The traitor and the scavenger cut them off in a relatively empty part of the district, and the scavenger activated a double-ended lightstaff, glowing bright golden. The traitor’s hand rested on his hip, and Hux watched Kylo’s gaze flick to it, taking in the lightsaber handle at his waist. Kylo ground his teeth together furiously, rage making him shake.

“Hand that man over, Ben,” she said, and if Hux hadn’t known the truth, he would have believed she had been a Jedi her whole life. She sounded remarkably self-assured. “This doesn’t have to be a fight, we just want to talk to him.”

“And I’m supposed to cooperate with  _ you?” _ Kylo asked, sneering. “Out of what? Family obligation? You saw me kill my father, you must known our shared blood doesn’t protect you, little cousin.” Apparently that was threat enough for FN-2187, because he unhooked his lightsaber and brought it up, the bright blue glow casting his face in shadows. Kylo let out a feral snarl. “And  _ you,  _ pathetic traitor, how  _ dare  _ you wield that lightsaber, it should be  _ mine!” _

“You couldn’t take it last time, you won’t this time,” FN-2187 - Finn, some part of Hux insisted, and he couldn’t help but capitulate because no nameless stormtrooper would face Kylo Ren down like this - said. 

“Ben, please,” the girl, Rey if Hux remembered correctly, said, stepping between Kylo and Finn, “I know the Order wants him, but you don’t have to be part of the Order, you could hand him over and say we took him from you, or just let us talk to him,” she pleaded. Kylo made a very loud scoffing noise.

“You make a lot of assumptions about what I want, cousin,” he said sharply. 

_ Let me talk to them, _ Hux thought, forcefully, and he felt a tiny tension in Kylo’s arm that indicated his surprise at Hux communicating mind-to-mind. _ Let them see that trying to recruit me for their Resistance is pointless. _

He felt Kylo’s laughter, through this newfound bond between them, and then he smiled, all teeth and no mirth, a predator’s grin.

“But I suppose no harm will come from letting the three of you chat,” he said, and he removed the binders on Hux’s wrists with the Force, calling them into his hand. Hux took a step forward and dropped his hood, then pulled down his scarf. Finn started, taking a step back, recognition washing over his face.

“You assume too much if you assume that just because I briefly made life difficult for the Order I’m willing to join your Resistance,” Hux said, staring both of them down.

“G-General?” Finn took a step closer to Rey, and Hux took note of the way they physically reached for each other for comfort. It was sweet enough to make him want to gag.

“As you can see, reports of my demise were  _ greatly  _ exaggerated.” He said. “Or at least greatly premature. Yes, I am still alive, and I intend to take my rightful place at the head of the First Order again. So carry this message back to  _ your _ General, for me: tell her I said she should be  _ very afraid,  _ because once I’m finished making Snoke pay for killing me,  _ I’m coming for her Republic next.” _ He grinned, feral and vicious. “Go, now, before I decide only one of you needs to be alive to carry the message back.” 

Rey and Finn locked eyes for a moment, and seemed to exchange some kind of silent communication, and then Finn did turn to leave, but Rey stayed behind for a moment longer. She turned to look at both of them.

“I would have liked to bring you home, Ben,” she said, sounding genuinely sad. “Your mother misses you.”

“Tell General Organa to stop worrying so damned much about the dead,” Kylo shot back, and then he took a step forward and wrapped an arm around Hux’s chest, pulling him close in a blatantly proprietary way. “I’ll come back to the Republic when Hell freezes over.”

Rey shook her head sadly, and then followed her companion. 

“Are you sure revealing yourself was wise?” Kylo asked, almost directly into Hux’s ear.

“I’m not exactly intending to stay hidden for long,” Hux said, laughing softly to himself. “And besides, I do so love having the Resistance terrified of me.”

Kylo turned him around and kissed him, again, and Hux sighed into it.

It was so,  _ so  _ very good to be back where he belonged.


	11. When the World Ender Comes, Better Run for Your Life

The entire way back to the spaceport, Kylo kept an arm very tightly wrapped around Hux’s waist. It might have ruined the prisoner image for anyone other than a Stormtrooper, but then again, Kylo Ren was also not a man people generally asked questions of. He got them to the transport shuttle and then to the  _ Finalizer,  _ and when they stepped off, Phasma and Mitaka were waiting. There were other officers, of course, but Hux was both amused and pleased to see that General Tarkin was not among them. Kylo had shared his impressions of Hux’s successor, and frankly, Hux felt they aligned with his assessments of Edthes Tarkin prior to him assuming command. He seemed to expect that because he was a Tarkin, the world would lay itself at his feet. 

He was wrong, and Hux intended to prove that to him.

Kylo waved the Lieutenant and the Captain off when they made to follow him, saying that he wanted to handle this on his own first and that he would contact them if they were needed, and then began pulling Hux through the ship.

Hux felt a smudge of pride to see that even in his absence, and even with an incompetent replacement at the helm, as far as he could tell his ship was running smoothly and efficiently, with the perfect precision he expected of his people. It would make things so much easier when he vented Tarkin out the airlock and took his ship back.

Ren drag-walked him in the general direction of the interrogation rooms, but made a hard left and circled back through some less-use hallways and back corridors in order to get them to his quarters unnoticed. Once they were inside, Kylo removed the binders and Hux sighed, discarding his cloak and scarf. As soon as they were off, Kylo was on him, pressing him against the wall and kissing him with a desperate ferocity. 

“I love you,” the Knight said, slightly brokenly, when they parted. “I never got to say it, before, and I regretted that, so - I’m not wasting another chance to. I love you, Hux, I have for a long time.”

“I love you, too,” Hux breathed, not bothering to contain the smile that drew its way across his face. He knew, he had known since he woke up and found Kylo’s lightsaber at his hip, but it felt good to hear it, and to say it in return.

Kylo guided him to the bed, and they fell into it together, and Kylo very enthusiastically welcomed Hux home.

 

* * *

 

Hux slipped out of the refresher and back into the bedroom, toweling off his hair and rather glad to be rid of the beard he’d developed in his weeks in hiding. It had done its job to help conceal his identity, but he didn’t need to do that anymore.

“You wouldn’t happen to have one of my uniforms lying around, would you? It would be nice to -” Halfway through the sentence, he glanced up and over at Kylo, and got a look at the other man’s expression. Kylo was sitting on the edge of the bed and staring like he still couldn’t quite believe Hux was really there. Hux sighed, dropping the towel and striding over. He climbed into Kylo’s lap, resting his forehead against the Knight’s, and reached up to loosely tangle a hand in Kylo’s hair. “I’m here,” he said, voice quiet. “It’s real. I promise.” Kylo’s hand came up to rest at his hip, thumb running over the Lichtenburg figures that now riddled most of Hux’s skin, fractal burn scars that traced the path of Snoke’s lightning through his body. 

“I know,” Kylo said, “I don’t think I would have thought to dream these onto you.” His voice was soft, and what looked like guilt wrote itself across his face. “This is my fault,” he said, “Snoke killed you because I love you, and he doesn’t want me having anyone but him.”

“And your grandfather and your namesake brought me  _ back  _ because you love me, and because they knew you would listen to me when I said that Snoke is trying to destroy you.” Hux said. “It isn’t your fault, Kylo. Snoke killed me because he is an ancient, power-mad monster, and I represent a threat to his power. Over you, over the First Order - and he was right to be afraid.” Kylo made a tiny startled noise, sitting back.

“What are you going to do? Kill him?” He asked, frowning. “I don’t -” Kylo sighed. “He promised he would complete my training, and then he abandoned me, and I feel so  _ lost _ . I’m not strong enough, Hux, I can’t fight him.”

“Yes, you can,” Hux said. “Yes,  _ we  _ can.” He said it with conviction, with absolute certainty, and he watched a fire begin to light in Kylo’s eyes.

They could do this.

 

* * *

 

Once Kylo had slipped into Hux’s old quarters and retrieved one of his uniforms, Hux found he felt much more like the commander he was supposed to be. His hair was carefully slicked back, and the uniform covered all of his new scars. Millicent twined between his legs, purring loudly to express her enthusiasm that her human was back, after she’d sulked for a time to scold him for being gone so long.

“Get Phasma and Mitaka,” Hux said, “I think we need to start planning how to retake my ship, as step one.” Kylo nodded, pulling out his communicator and pressing a brief kiss to Hux’s cheek, adjusting his command cap slightly.

“It’s good to see you back,  _ General,”  _ Kylo said, and the way he purred Hux’s name almost made Hux want to delay reading Phasma and Mitaka in on their coup so that he could go for round two. 

But they had forever, now, and taking back his ship  _ was  _ rather important.

Hux waited in the bedroom while Kylo beckoned Phasma and Mitaka in through the door, grinning to himself.

“Lord Ren, did you learn something from the prisoner?” Mitaka asked, and Hux was proud to hear that he sounded confident, assured, no longer afraid of Kylo. 

“You could say that,” Kylo said.

“Lord Ren?” Mitaka queried, at the same time Phasma said “ _ Ren, _ ” in a deeply exasperated tone that was incredibly familiar to Hux because he caught himself using it quite a lot. Hux took that as his cue, stepping into the room and grinning.

“Captain, Lieutenant,” he said.

Both Phasma and Mitaka stared, for a long moment, in shocked silence, but Phasma recovered first.

“Not a clone?” She asked Kylo, eyes darting between Hux and Ren and something distinctly like hope in her eyes.

“Not a clone,” Hux promised, and Ren nodded, clearly no longer worried about maintaining his intimidating exterior; a grin had spread its way across his face like he could no longer contain his sheer delight. “I’m alive, Phasma, and it really is me. I know you saw me die; that was no clever special effect - Snoke really did execute me. I was...brought back, by intervention of the Force. My activities since have been in hopes of this exact event; to wit, getting back to me ship so I can resume command. And also kill Snoke.”

It took Mitaka longer to recover, but he was much less restrained in showing his joy, practically flinging himself on the General and hugging him. Hux sighed, but patted the Lieutenant’s back. Overwrought displays of emotion weren't really in Hux’s repertoire, and he wasn’t particularly comfortable with them, but he was willing to let this one go.

Mitaka steppe back after a moment, sniffling faintly and wiping his eyes, and murmured “it’s just very good to have you back, sir.” Hux felt a roll of amusement from Kylo over their new Force bond, and had to suppress a quiet laugh himself. 

“What can we do?” Phasma asked, ever the strategist.

“Start rooting out Tarkin’s supporters,” Hux said, “and anyone who is likely to be loyal to Snoke over me. I doubt the latter category is particularly large, but if I were Tarkin I would have filled some of the unfortunate post-Starkiller vacancies on this ship with my own men.” 

“He did,” Mitaka said, wrinkling his nose. “Sycophants and climbers, mostly, just like him.”

“Lovely,” Hux frowned. 

“How would you like them disposed of?” Phasma asked.

“ _ Discreetly,”  _ Hux said, “and only if they seem utterly intractable or incompetent.”

“I’ll be putting out a call to my Knights,” Kylo said, and Hux was surprised by the determination in his tone, but also pleased. He had been concerned that Kylo would be less than enthusiastic for their plan, and his initial hesitation had been slightly worrying, but Kylo was taking to this with all the fiery determination Hux knew him capable of. “Recalling them to the  _ Finalizer.  _ We’ll need them, inevitably.” Hux nodded. “I will also need to borrow the General for a few days, which should give the two of you time to plan.”

“And to read in any officers you think are trustworthy,” Hux added. Mitaka and Phasma both nodded sharply. “Go,” Hux waved them off, and once they were gone, turned to Kylo.

“Why a few days?” He asked.

“Because,” Kylo grinned, “you’re going to build a lightsaber.”

 

* * *

 

Kylo walked him through the process, showed Hux the second crystal he had found on Ilum. The moment Hux touched it, he knew - it  _ was  _ his, it sang to him, and he felt it in his very core.

So he settled on the floor with Millicent in his lap, one hand stroking through her fur while he held the crystal in the other, and he meditated. It really was like the focusing exercises he used while sniping; calm breathing, focusing on a single thing, letting himself relax. He let himself fall into the Force, letting it flow through him and around him, and he  _ felt. _

And when he was sure the crystal was properly attuned to him, when the timbre of its song had shifted to something that resonated with him on every level, he let Kylo show him how to take the components from the Knight’s old lightsaber and rebuild it into something more suited to Hux. No more crossguard vents, a smoother design, and Hux even took the time to polish the slightly battered hilt. He turned it over in his hands, grinning down at it, and turned it on, testing the balance.

“Perfect,” he said.

“That weapon is your life,” Obi-Wan said, from somewhere to his left. “You may not be a Jedi,” and Kylo snorted at that, like the very prospect of a Jedi Hux was hilarious to him, “but that still holds true.” Hux switched the lightsaber off and holstered it at his belt.

“Oh, believe me, General Kenobi, I intend to keep it very close.” He said. He shrugged on his greatcoat, and then fished out his old comm unit. “Phasma?” He said, when she picked up. “Contact Mitaka. It’s time.”

He strode out of Kylo’s quarters with the Knight at his side, and as he strode through  _ his ship  _ to  _ his bridge,  _ he watched people jump out of his way and stare, and he heard the whispers begin.

Kylo Forced open the doors to the bridge, and Hux strode up the middle aisle, glancing over to see officers in the lowered workstations dropping comm units and nudging each other to point and stare. 

“Edthes Tarkin,” Hux said smoothly, “I believe you’re in my spot.”

Indeed, Tarkin was standing where Hux usually did on the bridge, in front of an array of command screens, and he spun around when he heard Hux’s voice, nearly falling onto the displays.

“G-General Hux?” Tarkin stammered. “But -- you’re dead!” 

“I  _ was  _ dead,” Hux said, and he strode forward. Tarkin tried to back up, and Hux followed, but Tarkin was definitely cornered, and Hux unhooked his lightsaber, turning it over in his hand.

“General, sir, please,” Tarkin pleaded, “I took command because I had to, I was  _ assigned,  _ it was -” Hux held up a hand, cutting him off.

“Chief Petty Officer Unamo,” Hux said, without looking away; he knew she was there, could feel her through the Force, feel her shock and amazement and the shining spark of loyalty, “tell me, how has General Tarkin performed, in your opinion?”

“Terribly, sir,” Unamo said. “With all due respect to the General, his strategizing is amateurish, he refuses to take input, and he continually allows for far more losses than would ever have been acceptable under your command. He seems more concerned with his own ego than the advancement of the First Order. Sir.” Hux nodded.

“Thank you. Lieutenant Mitaka, do you agree?” Hux asked.

“I do, sir.” Mitaka said.

“Does anyone  _ disagree  _ with Chief Petty Officer Unamo’s assessment of my replacement?” Hux asked.

Dead silence.

“General Hux, sir, I’ll step down, I’ll retire, whatever you want, just, please,” Tarkin begged. Clearly he could tell that Hux did not intend to let him live.

“I might have,” Hux said, dropping his voice so only Tarkin could hear, “but not only did you take my  _ command  _ and my  _ ship,  _ you tried to put your hands on  _ Kylo. _ So no,  _ General  _ Tarkin, I will not be letting you live.”

Hux ignited his lightsaber, and the bright white blade pierced Tarkin’s chest.

Tarkin sputtered, and fell, and Hux pulled the blade out.

“Someone call Sanitation and have them clean that up,” Hux said. There was a moment of silence, and then the bridge erupted in cheers. Kylo stepped forward and stood next to him, and Hux reached over, taking his hand.

They could do this. He was sure of it.


End file.
